Chapter III: Part 3

But before we speak of this atmosphere, or globe of air, which surrounds the earth, I want you to remember, as you read of the work of God on the Six Days of creation, that each one of these Days led, in a beautiful order, to the next, and that in all of them God was preparing the earth, which He had created in the beginning, for the creatures which He had not yet formed. For each kind of creature a place was found fit for it to live in, whether that dwelling-place was the earth, or the great and wide sea, or the boundless fields of air. And each creature, as it came from God's hand, was fitted to live where God had placed it: for every living thing the means of living was provided. Thus on the First of His Days God called for the light. What would the face of all the world be without it? Then on the SECOND DAY He not only provided the place in which the happy winged creatures fly and utter their sweet songs, but that by which all living things, whether they were plants or animals, should be kept alive. I am sure you know that without air you could not breathe; but perhaps you have never thought that without it no plant could live, not even the smallest blade of grass. Every green thing lives by breathing the air, and if there were no air which it could breathe, it would soon die.

How freely God has given us this great blessing! His air is all around us, as is His presence. When people wish to speak of what belongs to everyone alike they sometimes say, "It's as free as the air you breathe"--this wonderful air, which we cannot see, but which helps to make the sky so blue, without which no fire could burn, no robin sing to its mate, no lamb bleat after its mother, no merry voices of boys and girls at play be heard. God has indeed made it free to us; but let us never forget that we are, as His creatures, dependent upon Him for every breath we draw.

Now while we speak of the way in which this world was created by God, and fitted to become the dwelling-place of His creatures, we may remember how the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples, after He had told them that He would be only a little while with them, about the place He was going to prepare for them. This reminds me of a little incident which I should like to tell you, because it is so beautiful to know that the Lord of glory, who was allowed no place here, He who

"Wandered as a homeless stranger,
In the world His hands had made,"

has indeed gone to prepare a place for those whom He has, by His death and resurrection, made ready to dwell there.

In a quiet market-town in the North of England an aged Christian had invited a number of those of whom our Lord says, "whensoever ye will ye may do them good," to take tea with him and his friends. After they had enjoyed what loving hands had made ready, their host took out God's book, and turning to the second verse of the fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel, read it, and then said, "It comes to me in this way, dear friends: If our Lord is preparing a place, He wants a prepared people."

He then went on to say that we all need preparing, that is making ready, to dwell in the place of which the Lord Jesus Christ spoke as "My Father's house"--the place which was always His own home--and then he told once again the story which you have so often heard--

"... the old, old story
Of Jesus and His love."

The Lord often spoke to His own disciples about His Father. He said, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father," and when He spoke of leaving them He said, "If ye loved Me ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father." But we know that those who had been with their Master for so long did not rejoice when He spoke of going away: their hearts were filled with sorrow.

When He said to them, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know," Thomas replied; "Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?"

What did the Lord say?

He said that He was Himself the way to the Father--"I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me."

But if the Lord was going back to His Father's House--the place which was always His home--He was not willing to go alone. He might have gone back at any time, but if He would have those who could neither cleanse nor clothe themselves, who were sinful and unfit for that Home of love and light, He must go by the way of death, giving up His own life, that He might make them ready to dwell with Him in His Father's house; so that when He said, "I go to prepare a place for you," He, the Son of God, in His wonderful love, was going to do that which alone could make anyone fit to enter there, and be at home for evermore.

But then we sometimes go on as if we were to live in this world for ever, and do not come to Him who says, "I am the way." Or perhaps we think we can make ourselves ready by trying to be good--forgetting that the One who is Himself the Truth said, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost," and that if the Lord is preparing a place, He wants a prepared people.

But we were speaking about the way in which God, when He made this world in which we live, prepared it for the creatures to whom He would give it to be their dwelling-place; and especially of the globe of air with which He has surrounded the earth--that wonderful ocean of air in which we live and move, just as the fish live and move in their ocean of water.

Let us see if we cannot learn something more about the atmosphere. But first of all let me ask, What can you tell me about it?

"You cannot see the air; you can feel it, and often hear it."

Yes, indeed we can. How delightfully fresh it comes to us as we swing, or when we are driving fast, or sailing; and how terrible its force is when the stormy wind rushes past, driving everything before it! It is then we can understand that the gentle air, which yields to the slightest touch, may be a very mighty power indeed.

And now I am going to tell you something about the air which may surprise you. We often say of a thing that it is "as light as air"; but air is not really light, it is so heavy that it would press upon us and crush us, just as a great hammer might crush your little finger, only that this heavy weight of air presses quite evenly everywhere all through our body, within and without, upward as well as downward, and yields at once when we move, so that we do not feel its weight.

Just think of the weight of water which lies above a little fish as it swims far down in the sea. Why is it not crushed by it? Just for the same reason; the water is all round the fish, as the air in our ocean is all round us; and it presses so evenly that it cannot be felt in any particular part.

Another very wonderful thing about the atmosphere is that what we call the air is made up of two airs, or gases, as different as possible from each other, but mixed so as to make exactly that particular sort of air which is fit for us to breathe.

One of these gases, named oxygen, might well be called "life-sustainer"; it forms about one-fifth of the air we breathe, and is that part of it which makes our fires burn and our lamps give light, and keeps us and all the animals alive. The other gas is called nitrogen; it is a dull gas, with no life in it, and remains behind when all the oxygen is taken out of the air. But this part of the air is very useful; it prevents the breathing of men and animals and the burning of fires and lamps, from going on too fast. If you had only the life-sustaining part of the air to breathe, you would soon die; and if the air was all made of that part which burns so well, one spark falling upon it would be enough to burn up the whole world, for no one could put the fire out.

These two gases are mixed in nearly the same proportions in all climates so as to make the beautiful pure air which God has given us to live and go about in. There is another gas, called carbonic acid, made partly of oxygen and partly of carbon, or burnt wood, which might be called "life-destroyer," for it will put out light and make an end of life. It is one of the most deadly poisons, and forms the "choke-damp" which too often suffocates the miner; but what we call fresh air contains such a very small proportion of this dangerous gas that it is harmless. Still we must remember that every time anyone or any animal breathes, some of the air by which we live is taken away from that which surrounds us, and some of this poisonous air is thrown into it. If this is the case, should we not, by degrees, find the air becoming less and less pure and fit for us to breathe?

Certainly it would be so, if God had not made a beautiful provision for keeping the air fresh, which I will try to explain to you.

You may remember that the Lord Jesus, after He had made the five barley loaves and two small fishes prove enough for thousands of hungry men and women and little children, turned to His disciples, and said, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." So, in the world around us, we may often see that God gives freely, but does not allow what He has freely given to be lost or wasted.

Now when you take a long breath, and breathe in the air, you presently breathe it out again. But what you breathe out is not the same; the part of it by which you live is gone, and a poisonous air has taken its place. Then, if every person in the world, and even the smallest animal, is constantly using up the good part of the air, and breathing out that which has been spoilt for animals, and would kill them if they had nothing else to breathe--why are not all animals poisoned? What becomes of this air which has been spoilt for them? Is it good for anything?

Ah! there is a wonderful, beautiful answer to these questions going on all day long, surely and silently, unseen by any of us.

This air which has been used by us, and is no longer fit for our use, feeds the plants and trees, the grass, and all living things which are not animals; the plants, through tiny mouths at the edge of their leaves, breathe it in. They grow by it; and, wonder of wonders, all day long, if only the plant is where the sun can shine upon it, every green bit of it is busy making this same air fit for us to breathe again; using up what it wants, and what we do not want; every fragment, as it were, being gathered up, and nothing lost.

I used to think, when I first learnt this beautiful lesson, that every part of a plant was useful in purifying the air, and also that plants are always busy at this purifying work, and so I liked to keep geraniums and fuchsias in my room at night, for I thought that while I was asleep they would keep the air fresh and sweet. But now I know--for as long as we live in this world we can always be learning--that it is only in the daytime, when there is light, that a plant can keep the air pure, by using up what we have spoilt for our own use, and giving away what is good for us to breathe; and also that, it is only the green part of it that has the power to take out of the air the carbonic acid which we are constantly breathing into it, using the carbon for its own food, and giving the oxygen back into the air for our use; the parts which are not green, such as the roots and flowers, breathe just as animals do, and spoil the air for us instead of making it more fit for us to breathe.

You never thought, did you, that you help to feed the trees, and to keep them alive and green, and that the trees and grass in their turn help to keep you alive?

We were saying the other day how a ray of light will come through a little round hole in the shutters when they are closed, or by any cranny through which it can force its way. As long as that one ray is shining into the darkened room you may watch the little grains of dust, like bright specks, dancing up and down in it. But someone opens the shutters, the room becomes all light, and you no longer see those tiny specks--and yet the dust is still there, not only where you saw it, but all over the room.

Why could you see the dust just where the ray of light shone, and nowhere else? The light did not make the dusty specks, they were in the room already, but it showed them to you.

Just so there are many wonderful things going on around us in earth and sky and sea--in what people call Nature--which we cannot see or hear or feel; for God is always working mightily and graciously, unseen and unheard by us, though He does allow us to know "parts of His ways," and to look with wonder upon many more which we cannot understand.

We are apt to think that all things continue as they were from the beginning of the world: but in reality the earth is never at rest; it has passed through many changes, and still the old story goes on; on the one hand there is change and decay, and on the other that constant building up and repair by which "the face of the earth" is "renewed." Nothing is lost; nothing stands still; and things which seem to have no relation to one another, yet depend upon each other and work together in ways more wonderful than we could ever have imagined: each is a part of the great whole, and you could not take away any portion without spoiling the rest.

And now let us read again the 7th and 8th verses of our chapter.

"And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

What are the "waters which were above"?

They are those beautiful clouds which seem to float in the ocean of air. I am sure you have often wondered at their pure loveliness, as they sailed over the sky, soft and white against the blue, as the foam upon the sea. It was such clouds as these which two little boys saw once when they were out driving. They were sitting close together in the back seat, and their father heard them talking about the sky.

"Look," said one of the children, "God lives in the blue."

"No, Georgie," said his brother, "He lives in the white."

They were both right, for God is everywhere.

A little child of whom I have heard used to think, because she understood that brightness and glory go together, that the stars were holes in the floor of God's dwelling, to let the glory through. In the book of Job the clouds are spoken of as "the treasure-house of the rain and snow," and as the "bottles of heaven," and these names become full of meaning when we know that the water, which falls from the clouds at every shower, is constantly being drawn up again to fill them once more. This is done by what is called evaporation, and very much of the water which rises to the clouds comes from the sea, along shore, as well as from rivers and lakes. Have you seen a pond dry up in summer? No? Then perhaps you have looked into the ink bottle when all the ink had gone, and only some dry black dust was left in it. What has happened? All the water in the ink has flown away; the heat has turned it into vapour, which is lighter than air, and so it has risen up through the air to form part of those snowy clouds which you love to watch, when the light of the setting sun turns them to crimson and gold. This change of water into vapour is one of the beautiful things which we cannot often see, but which is always going on. The rain from heaven falls upon the thirsty land, making it bring forth and bud, that there may be bread for us, and food for every living thing; and then, when its work is done, all that is not wanted goes back again, and is stored up in the treasure-house of the clouds--nothing is lost.

I remember when we were speaking of this, I asked my children what the earth would be like if all the rain that fell remained upon it. Chrissie was the only one who had an answer ready; he said it would soon be a swamp, and nothing could grow well, and no one could live. We can all understand that if there were no rain to "satisfy the desolate ground," the earth would soon be a parched desert; but it is just as true that, while the rain is such a blessing, if God had not provided for its returning to the clouds, the earth would indeed become a desolate waste of water. I must tell you that little Dick was very much interested about this, and he remembered that he had seen, in a place where the sun was shining, the water going back from the earth to the clouds. "It went up in streaks," he said, "and I saw it quite plainly."

Generally we look up at the clouds, but I remember once looking down and seeing them below me. I had climbed a high mountain, and just when I got to the top it happened that the peak was quite clear, but around it, a little lower down, a wreath of white cloud was floating. Every now and then, through a rift in the cloud, I could see the beautiful valley below, with its smiling fields and winding river, and far away there was the sea, with hundreds of green islands; all this I saw for a moment, as if through a soft thin veil, and then the cloud closed again, and shut out the view. I can quite understand travellers saying how lovely it is when they sail through the air in balloons, to get up into a clear still height, and see the "plains of clouds" below them. But there is one thing which makes voyages in balloons dangerous. The higher people go, the more thin and difficult to breathe the air becomes. One celebrated traveller, when he had got as high as seven miles in his balloon, lost his senses, and his companion was nearly frozen to death by the piercing cold. This traveller tells us that about six or seven miles above the earth no sound can reach the ear to break the perfect stillness and silence. This is because the air at this height is so thin. On the top of Mont Blanc a pistol-shot can scarcely be heard even though it is fired quite close; but if the same pistol were to be fired off in the next field you would hear it, and put your hand to your ears because the report was so loud.

But what makes the report? The pistol was fired into the air, and hit nothing.

It was the air which was struck, and which sent back the sound. You remember learning how light is turned back or reflected. Just as the light-waves come back again, so do the sound-waves; very quickly if the reflecting surface is near; after some time if it is far off. You know what an echo is. There is a lovely place where some children I know used often to go for a picnic. What they cared for most in Coombe Dingle was a wood which they called the "Echo wood." They would stand beside a gate, and call across the fields, and then listen. Very soon their own words, and even their own tones, were sent back to them. The waves of air carried the sounds along until they reached a pine wood which shut in the field. They struck the tall trees, and were reflected, or sent back again, almost as clearly as when first spoken.

Just in this way echoes of sound are, like birds, ever on the wing: the whole air is alive with them. The walls of our rooms give back the tones of our voices, but we hear no echo, because they are so near that the repeating of the sound comes almost at the same moment as the sound itself. There are echoes on all sides of us, and no sound is ever lost. How can this be?

If you stand beside a quiet pool, and drop a stone into it, the stone sinks down to the bottom and lies there; but from the spot where its fall broke the calm surface, ring after ring ripples the water. Just so a single word dropped from the lips of a child into the ocean of air is carried on, wave after wave; so that, as a great philosopher once said, "the air is one vast library, on whose pages is for ever written all that man has ever said or even whispered."

There is a poem which you may know, that begins with this line--

"Kind words can never die."

This is quite true; but we might alter the first part of it a little, and say, "No word can ever die." Not only the soft, loving words, but the rough, angry ones, which we may well wish we had never spoken, all live in this "vast library," and tell their own story.

How much it ought to make us think about our words, to know they can never be lost!

THE RED, RED SKY.

"In the early, early morning, beyond the islands green,
Beyond the pines and palm trees, and the purple sea between,
Like the glow through a crimson window the morning rises slow,
And the isles lie dun in the glory, and the sea is all aglow.

"In the dim and misty evening the purple mountains stand,
And the glooms that hush the woodlands lie over all the land,
And high in dark blue heavens the red light bums and glows.
Like the Jasper of God's city, like the deep heart of the rose.

"Oh, why does morning dawn, and why ends the golden day,
With the crimson glow and glory, while the children kneel and pray?
Is it thus that God would tell me before the day begins
Of the morn of the Day of pardon, the Blood that has washed my sins?

"The morn of the day of gladness, the day of His love and grace,
When like the sun in his glory, the Lord unveiled His face,
And His love shone forth in beauty where all was dark before,
For the Blood had been shed which saved me, once and for evermore.

"Is it thus that God would tell me the evening draweth nigh,
When we pass beyond the mountains, beyond the purple sky?
And then, in God's great glory, the golden gates I see,
And sing, 'The Blood of Jesus has opened them for me!'"

FRANCES BEVAN

Taken, by permission, from _Hymns by Ter Steegen and Others_. Second series.

THE THIRD DAY.

THE WORLD OF WATER.

"_The sea is His, and He made it._"--PSALM xcv. 5.

"_Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand?_"--ISAIAH xl. 12.

"_Who layeth the beams of His chambers in the waters._"--PSALM civ. 3.

"_He hath compassed the waters with bounds._"--JOB xxvi. 10.

We have been learning something about the wonderful world of air, in which we live and move about. To-day we shall think a little of that vast world of water which is the home of so many of God's creatures. I daresay you know a pretty song about the ocean, beginning in this way (it is meant to be sung by a sailor):

"The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies."

The philosophers say that if our earth were quiet and at rest, instead of being the never-resting traveller that it is, the great mass of water would surround it everywhere, just as the atmosphere does. We cannot imagine such a thing, but we can see many ways in which the two great oceans are alike.

Both have their waves. Though we cannot see those in the world of air, we can hear them, as you know.

Both are colourless in themselves, yet blue in their heights and depths. Both are made of two airs or gases, beautifully combined.

At first sight we might say that this is almost too strange a tale to be a true one; for few things seem more unlike than air and water. You will think it stranger still when I tell you that one of the gases which goes to form water is that same oxygen which gives life to the air we breathe, and which will burn so fast if only a tiny spark comes in contact with it; while the other is the gas called hydrogen, the "water-maker," which also burns. And yet these two fiery gases make the water which the brave firemen pump in streams upon a burning house to put out the flames. How wonderful this is! If you were to mix them together as carefully as you could, using exactly the same proportion of each as is found in water, you would make something very dangerous, which might blow up with a terrible noise like gunpowder. It is only when they are "combined," which means very closely joined together, that they form water.

Perhaps this is rather hard to understand; but we have been taking only a very little peep into that page of what is called the Book of Nature, which tells to those who will take the trouble to read it something about the chemistry of things--not so much how they are made, for that is a lesson too great for us, but what goes to the making of them.

And now we are going to read the verses in our chapter which tell us of the time when, at the word of God, "the sea and the dry land" were made.

"And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was good."

Once more you have read these words, "God said," "God called," "God saw." They are quickly read. But who shall say how wonderful is that of which they speak? God has been pleased in these few words to tell us what no one could ever have found out about the birthday of that mighty world of waters, when it was gathered together unto the place which He had prepared for it, and received its name from Him.

I wonder whether you have ever seen the sea. If you have, you know it and love it so well that there is no need for me to try to describe it to you. If you have not, if your home has always been in the country among the quiet fields, far away from the sound of the waves as they break upon the strand; or if you have lived all your life in the town, where the streets are full of noise and bustle, and busy folk hurrying to and fro--then I think it would be almost as difficult for me to give you an idea of what the boundless ocean is like, as it was for the kind miner to make his little friend understand all about seas and lakes and rivers, as he talked to him over that poor little pail of water, deep down in the dark mine.

Ah! you must see the great ocean-world for yourself; you must sail over the crests of the waves, and learn to swim and dive. If you have never yet been to the seaside, there is indeed a treat in store for you some day, and I should like to be with you when that day comes, and catch a sight of your face, so full of wonder and pleasure. I remember hearing of a little "city sparrow" of a boy who was taken with a great many town children to spend a long summer's day by the seaside. When he first came in sight of the bay, with its bright, dancing waters, and saw the tide rolling in, wave after wave, upon the yellow sands, he gave one long, satisfied look, and then said, "How nice it is to see plenty of anything!"

Poor child, these words of his told their own touching tale; he had never, in his parents' home, known what plenty was, and so his first thought about the "great and wide sea" which God had made, was that there was enough of it and to spare--no stint there, at any rate. To another little boy, the first sight of the sea brought this thought, "How great God, who made it, must be!"

It is delightful to live, as I did when a child, within sight and sound of the sea; but I suppose it is only those who really live upon the world of waters, sailing away in a swift ship, day after day, for thousands of watery miles, and seeing nothing but the two oceans, "the blue above and the blue below," as that same sailor-song says, who can really know anything of its vastness. How strange it must seem, to be neither a fish nor a bird, and yet to live as it were between sea and sky; each morning finding yourself farther away from land, each night lying down to be "rocked in the cradle of the deep," and to hear the wash of the waves as the boat cuts her way through them, and the sighing of the wind, not through the trees on the lawn, but among the sails and ropes of your floating home!

I have sometimes thought that the sight of "water, water everywhere," during a voyage of three months, must make one more ready to believe what we are told by those who have done what they can in the way of weighing and measuring--that upon our globe "water is the rule, and dry land the exception"; and also that, although we read in geography books about the five great oceans, yet the ocean is really one, for it "embraces the whole earth with an uninterrupted wave." As we think of this wonderful wave which thus girdles the earth about, constantly breaking against the shore, yet always flowing back again, at its appointed time, into its own place, we may well remember that THIRD DAY of Creation, when "God spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast"; when "He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment."

In a Psalm which has been called the "Psalm of Creation," because it speaks of the greatness and glory of God, and of how the Lord shall rejoice in His works, we find a description of what happened at this time. There is a beautiful verse which speaks of God covering the earth "with the deep as with a garment"; and of a time when it was so covered and hidden that "the waters stood above the mountains."

And then we read how, at God's word, that waste of waters went into the place prepared for it, and the dry land appeared. "At Thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of Thy thunder they hasted away. The mountains ascend, the valleys descend, unto the place which Thou hast founded for them" (you will find the verse reads like this in the margin of your Bible). "Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth" (Psalm civ. 7-9). I was very young when I learnt this long Psalm; and though I understood very little of it, and certainly did not know that these verses spoke about what we have been reading of in the Book of Genesis, I was very fond of repeating it, and I especially liked the part which describes the "great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom Thou hast made to play therein." Of course I need not tell you that I did not know what the leviathan was; but I liked the name because it was such a long, difficult word, and I have known other children who were particularly fond of strange and hard names. As we grow older we learn many things; and so--for I told you my home was by the sea--I got, in time, to know the meaning of a very difficult verse; that one which speaks of the "bound" which God has set, beyond which the sea with its proud waves "may not pass." When the tide was coming in I used to watch the long blue waves with their foamy crests coming nearer and nearer, and when I heard them break with a loud noise against the strong rocks I was quite sure that those stern barriers were the "bound" which kept them back, and would not allow them to come any further.

But by-and-by I went to a place where the shore was quite different. There were no rocky cliffs, like giants, guarding the land; only a long reach of soft white sand, with which I was never tired of playing--making forts with moats round them to keep off the enemy; or gardens with straight paths, and trim beds in which I planted sea-daisies and poppies.

It seemed as if there was nothing about this shore strong enough to keep back the great waves. They rolled in upon the sand with an angry roar when the wind was high, and swept away my castles and gardens in no time. Still, even here there was a bound, for the sea did not overflow the land; and so I learnt that those waves, which threaten to overwhelm everything in their resistless march, are kept in their place by God, who alone can say to the restless ocean, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."

As the poet George Herbert has beautifully said,

"Tempests are calm to Thee; they know Thy hand,
And hold it fast as children do their father's,
Which cry and follow, Thou hast made poor sand
Bound the proud sea, even when it swells and gathers."

I do not mean that the waves, as they rush like an invading army upon the land, have no effect upon it. Look at the Map of England, and see how the outline of the coast on the east and south has been jagged and broken. Or go and see the Needles in the Isle of Wight, and you will learn how the constant dash of the ocean can hollow out not only caves, but deep coves and spreading bays, especially when the land against which it breaks is made of chalk, or some of the softer rocks. Thus in the course of long centuries, the seashore may rise or sink; peninsulas may become islands by the narrow neck which united them to the mainland sinking into the water--but whatever the land loses in one place, it gains in another, by the quantity of sand and mud cast up by the waves. Many changes are caused by the restless sea, but yet, even in its wildest moods, it owns the curbing hand of its Maker; it may ebb and flow, but still keeps in its appointed place.

This ebbing and flowing, which is caused by the coming in and going out of the tides, was a great puzzle to me long ago. I used often to hear the fishermen say at what hour it would be "full tide"; but I saw no mark which could help them to fix the time, and wondered, when I found their words came true, how they could know so surely. When I was older I learnt, what is very interesting, that the gradual rising of the ocean, which is called the "flow," and the gradual going back again of the water, which is called the "ebb," do not happen at any chance time, for nothing is by chance in God's creation, but at regular intervals, and in obedience to one of those wonderful rules made by God, which people call the "laws of nature"--rules which never change as the rules which men make so often do. And so we notice that for about six hours from the time when the tide begins to rise, the sea gains upon the land, either stealing on, step by step, over the pebbly beach, and creeping tip the mouths of the rivers, or, when the winds are abroad, rushing over the sand, and dashing against the rocks, as if it would sweep all before it. No power upon earth can stop that steady onward march of wave upon wave, until the unseen boundary is reached. Then we say, "It is full tide." The mighty ocean seems to pause for a few minutes, then some old fisherman, who has known that shore all his life, says, "The tide has turned"; and for six hours the gradual fall goes on. At last the lowest point of the "ebb" is reached--a few minutes' rest, and then the "flow" begins again.

To those who have seen it all their lives there is nothing strange about this, but when some brave Roman soldiers, who were accustomed to conquer wherever they came, saw for the first time this ebb and flow of the tide, they were more frightened than they would have been if they had seen an army of savage men with spears and clubs rushing upon them with their fierce war-cry. They were in the presence of a power which they could not understand, and in terror they besought their general to lead them against foes whom they could face, or to take them back to their own land!

By-and-by you will be interested in learning more about the tides, but I will only tell you now that they are caused by the sun and moon. Two pair of waves travel round the earth every day, the greater pair obedient to the moon, which, because she is so much nearer to us, has a greater power of drawing the water to herself than the sun has; the lesser pair obedient, in like manner, to the attraction of the sun. This is all that I can tell you now about a very difficult subject, and it is more than I told Chrissie or Ernest when we were talking about the sea; but then you know we had not much time for matters hard to be explained. One thing which I think we did talk about was the depth of the sea, and I know there were some differences of opinion about this as well as about its colour.

First of all, then, How deep is the "deep, deep sea"?

Actually, in some places, five miles deep, about the height of the loftiest of mountain-peaks. I have heard that these far-away ocean-depths are very quiet and still--no rolling waves ever break their stillness, and this is proved in a very beautiful way. At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where overhead great billows which seem mountain-high are in ceaseless motion, there lie beds of delicate shells, so small that you need a microscope to see their beauty, yet these shells are unbroken; no storm ever reaches their quiet home; they are among the lovely things which the ocean hides in its "treasure-caves," and they only come to light when the long line with a clip at the end, which is used for deep-sea soundings, brings them to the surface from those

"Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream."

These delicately "chambered" shells were once the homes of creatures which lived in the sunless depths of the ocean, for though it is totally dark at the bottom of the deep, deep sea, life is now known to exist at all depths below the surface of the ocean; on the ocean-floor starfishes and their relations abound, and some of those brought from a great depth are very beautiful indeed--telling to those who have eyes to see, the same tale as the little fern buried in the coal--that it is the glory of every created thing to show forth something of its Creator, even in hidden places where no human eye can trace its loveliness.

I am sure when we speak of the treasures of the sea, you are thinking of places where pearls lie deep, hidden in the shell of the oyster--but I did not know until lately that not only iron and copper, but also gold and silver, are found in sea water.

And now what can we say of the colour of the sea? I used to think that it was always a clear green, but that was because the sea which I knew appeared to be that colour, for I had seen it only near the shore, where the bottom was fine white sand, and the sunset light made the water shine like an emerald. And so the sea was green to me, and I was often puzzled and vexed to find that I could never catch this beautiful green water; for you know that if you dip your bucket where the sea looks greenest or bluest, all the lovely colour will seem to be left behind, and your bucket-full will look as colourless as water drawn from a well. Where the sea is dark blue, you may be sure that it is deep where it looks gold and purple, the sun has tinged it with the glory of his rising and setting; where it is grey and sad, it takes its sorrowful hue from the rain-clouds overhead. These are some of the reasons why the sea is of such different colours, but the water is sometimes coloured, to some extent, by myriads of living things which give it a reddish tinge; in the cold Northern Ocean, where the icebergs are, travellers tell us the sea is green because there its tiny inhabitants are green; while those who have sailed in the South American waters tell of countless swarms of minute creatures which make them glow like fire on a dark night, lighting up the crest of every wave as it rolls past the ship.

The sea is also coloured by those beautiful plants which we often call by one common name--seaweeds, but which are almost as varied in their way as the land plants are.

Columbus, when sailing sadly through unknown seas in search of the New World of which he had dreamed so long, came upon water so covered with long green weeds that it seemed like a floating meadow, while his vessels could hardly make their way through the grassy tangles of what is now known as the Gulf-weed.

I have seen the sea off the coast of Ireland green for miles, with long, ribbon-like plants covering its sandy bottom, sheltering, and perhaps helping to feed, the millions of crawling and running and swimming creatures, many of them so small as to be nearly invisible, which find their home there. This sea-grass, or Zostera, the only flowering plant to be found in the sea, is very useful to the poor people who live near the coast. They gather it when the tide is low, and dry it in the sun, and it serves them for nice soft beds; though I should think they must always keep a briny, fishy smell about them.

The Irish fisher-folk also gather the common brown seaweed with pods, which are really air-bladders, and serve to keep it afloat. I have many a time watched the women and children wading among the pools, cutting it from the rocks with sickles, and putting it into baskets, which they carry home on their backs; for this precious harvest of the sea is what they depend upon to make their potatoes grow well and yield a plentiful crop. There is another kind of seaweed, of a pretty purple colour, which they eat, and call it by an Irish name which means "leaf of the water."

But it is far away in the watery valleys of the great Pacific, where the sea is very calm, that the ocean forests grow. I have read that there giant leaves of the sea grow upon stems longer than those of our tallest trees, and spread abroad like waving palms. Though you are not likely ever to see such seaweeds as these, you will find, wherever you may be, though much more abundantly on some shores than others, some of those beautiful "weeds"--green, red, or brown--which have their use as well as their beauty; for they help to purify the water, just as plants do the air. Perhaps I should not promise more than the brown Tangle and the green Ulva, with its bright lettuce-like leaves; for red seaweeds belong to deep water, and are not easy to find. Many an hour have I spent peering and groping in the little pools at low water in search of these same much-prized rosy-tinted "flowers of the sea"; and many a disappointment I have had, even after a fortunate find, in seeing how soon the lovely colour faded, in spite of all my efforts to keep it.

We often speak of the "salt sea" or "the briny ocean," without perhaps thinking how it comes to be salt. I used to think it was because there were vast salt mines at the bottom of the sea; but that was only a guess at the truth.

Let us think what happens when there is a heavy shower; how quickly the raindrops gather force until they run down the street, making gutters on each side! But how unlike the muddy water in these gutters is the rain as it fell from the sky--how is this? It is the same water, but as it hurries along each drop picks up and carries with it its own little grain of sand or dust. If tiny gutters are tinged by the mud which they carry with them, how much more must this be the case with the great rivers which empty themselves into the ocean! They carry with them not only sand and earth, but the minerals and salts which are contained in them, to form the bed of the ocean. The salt which is thus washed out of the soil by streams and rivers is not evaporated, but remains behind, for the sea has no outlet through which it can again be carried away.

If you go to Switzerland, you will be able to see for yourself how a great river as it rushes along its course washes away the soil. The Rhone, when it enters the Lake of Geneva, is so laden with mud that its waters are brown and turbid. For some distance you can trace the course of this brown water as it makes its way through the deep blue of the lovely lake, not mingling with it--but by the time the river reaches the other end of the lake it has rid itself of its burden: the mud has sunk to the bottom, and the Rhone flows out a clear stream. This is a strange and beautiful sight which perhaps you may see some day.

Have you ever noticed how often the sea is mentioned in the New Testament? We read of the Lord Jesus walking beside it, and sailing over it in the boat with His disciples. And I daresay you remember how He once sat in the boat upon the sea, while He taught the people who were upon the shore. The Sea of Galilee must have been calm and quiet then, but it was not always so. Travellers tell us a great deal about the beauty of this lake, when the sky is clear, and the crimson bloom of the Oleanders is reflected in the still water. But they speak also of the sudden and dangerous storms, which rush down from the mountains, and turn the glassy lake into a raging sea. In the gospel by Mark we read of just such a storm of wind, when the Lord Jesus Christ was in the little boat with His disciples crossing over to the other side. It was such a terrible storm, that the waves dashed into the boat until it was filled with water.

"And all but One were sore afraid
Of sinking in the deep;
His head was on a pillow laid,
And He was fast asleep."

Yes, amid all the tumult and alarm, the Saviour who was often weary in this sad world, was sleeping upon the cushion of the boat. He slept on until the disciples came and awoke Him with their cry, "Master, carest Thou not that we perish?" Then the voice of the Lord was heard above the rage of wind and water, and their cry of terror, as He rose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, "Peace, be still." The proud waves obeyed that voice of power, the wind was hushed, "and there was a great calm."

Do you remember what the Lord said to His disciples, and what they said to one another, as they "feared exceedingly"?

Perhaps you wonder how anyone could be afraid, no matter how dreadful the noise of the winds and waves might be, when the Lord Jesus was there. It is true that in that little boat, tossing upon the dark stormy lake, was the One who upholds all things by the word of His power, the One whose word those stormy winds fulfil; but the disciples, though they had been so much with Him, were now to learn a little more who their Master was, and to find that there was no fear of perishing when the Lord of life was with them. They seem to have forgotten, too, that He had said, before they launched the boat, "Let us pass over unto the other side"; or they might well have afforded to be quiet when He slept, for after He had said those words, they were as sure of being there with Him as if already landed.

How kind it was of the Lord to put the disciples with Himself, and say, "Let US pass over"; and how safe and free from fear of harm are those happy people who have trusted themselves, with all they are, and all they have, for this life and the long life that is to come, to this mighty, gracious Saviour and Lord! One who knew this great happiness, once wrote these beautiful verses about having Christ in the boat as he sailed over the ocean of life, with its many storms. He said--

"My bark is wafted from the strand
By breath divine;
And on the helm there rests a hand
Other than mine.

"One who has known in storms to sail
I have on board;
Above the raging of the gale
I hear my Lord."